Thank you for the theories you sent in. I think this chapter will shed some light on what is going on.
Chapter 5: Last call
He sat, stared and thought for a while. Tony and McGee were silent as well, just as overwhelmed with the new developments.
"What about Jenny's bank account? What happened to all her money? With that house she had, I always figured she must have inherited quite a lot. And as director you don't get paid too badly, either," Tony spoke up after a while of sitting quietly on his chair.
"All of her money was sent to an account in Switzerland, where it was withdrawn three days after she died," McGee had already checked that.
"By whom?" he asked, although he suspected he knew the answer.
"By a Jennifer Sheppard," the computer genius knew.
"Maybe she's still alive," Tony went down the same road as he and Abby earlier.
"You were there at the diner, Tony. You found her body," he pointed out.
"There was no pulse. I checked," DiNozzo said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else.
"Is there anything left, McGee, anything at all?" he went on with the questions.
"I'm sorry, boss, but I couldn't find anything. She was very thorough and really deleted everything. I can't even find her birth certificate anymore. No bank accounts, no property, not even a parking ticket with her name on it," McGee replied in the negative.
"Can it be reversed?" Tony asked.
"No. One could create her identity anew, but only with a lot of effort and with her alive and breathing," the younger agent informed him. "Why?" McGee asked.
"I'm just wondering what would have happened if she had survived. She had deleted everything, which meant she wouldn't have existed anymore. She couldn't have stayed Director of NCIS without an identity," Tony explained his train of thought.
"Maybe she never intended to come back. Or she didn't want to take any chances that whatever she was hiding would be found out," he spoke up and then thought again. They had nothing left. All the files were gone, articles erased, her house burned down, all of her possession... "What happened to her stuff?" he asked suddenly, while the other two were deep in thought again.
"What stuff, boss?" McGee couldn't follow.
"Her car, her house... her stuff," he explained and got again, paced the room back and forth like it would help him finding answers.
"I don't know boss. By the time she was dead she officially didn't own anything anymore, so I guess it all went to the state at some point." He couldn't help him.
"What about the stuff we had? What was found at the diner?" he went on, knowing in his gut that he was on the right track now. if the stuff was still there, they might have something to work with, If it was gone this was all an inside job and they would have to find answers inside the agency.
"Found it boss, " McGee said after typing like a manic. He breathed out in relief. They had at least something. "Her clothes, her gun, the jewelry she wore and her cell phone never got picked up. It's all still in evidence," McGee grinned.
"Locker number?"
"209," he said, and all three hurried over to the elevator.
Seeing her bloody clothing was hard. It didn't smell like her anymore, which unsettled him and he remembered the smell of her perfume in the shower and on her shawl. There were more bullet holes in them than he had expected. He had never looked at her again after she was dead, he had only seen the photos of the crime scene. Carefully he lay out her blouse and the jeans, and placed the still dusty boots on the ground. She had been dressed like the old Jen' that day, the one she had been before she had become director. The one had been in love with- but then he had always loved her, no sense in denying it now.
Her jewelry was in one plastic bag. Her small earrings , her large watch with the golden wristband and a golden ring she had worn on her right hand, that looked like to joined wedding bands.
The last items the bag contained, were her gun, her badge and her blackberry.
"Not much to work with. Her purse isn't here," DiNozzo remained skeptical.
"It's all we got," he refused to give up already. "DiNozzo, take her clothes and her gun to Abby. I want to know if there's anything on them that could help us. McGee, take her cell phone and find out who she had been talking to. I want every message, every call, everything you can still pull off that phone," he said and the two agents nodded and hurried off with Jenny's things, leaving only her jewelry behind.
Carefully he picked up her ring and held it up in front of his eyes and turned it in the neon light of the evidence garage. "What were you up to, Jen? And why didn't you come to me? Why didn't you trust me anymore? I would have helped you, you know. Whatever it was that you were involved in." he spoke quietly, aware that his voice was getting lost between all the evidence boxes.
He closed his hand around the ring and regretted that he had never exchanged it for an engagement or wedding ring. She would have been his last wife, he was sure of that. Not even the fact that Ducky had told him, she had been sick made him reconsider it. She wouldn't have been on her own and he wouldn't have left her side until the end. It wouldn't have been a lonely death in the middle of nowhere with only an older agent as backup. She shouldn't have died like this.
"She was dying, Jethro. She knew the deterioration would have been rapid. Debilitating pain, loss of motor skills... As difficult as it is to say, this may have been more merciful.."
Had she known that she would die that day? Had she even intended to ever make it out of there, he asked himself, remembering the M.E's words. He suddenly knew who he needed to talk to, to maybe get some answers to that question and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
"Probie, do you have any idea what time it is here?" Mike Franks grumbled when he answered his phone, that he strangely had turned on.
"Still, you're answering your phone," he pointed out.
"What kind of trouble are you in this time?" his former boss came straight to the point.
"It's late Mike, and I don't want to keep you from sleep with boring details. I need to know everything you remember about what happened after Jenny called you, before she was killed. Everything she said," he replied and leaned against the table where Jenny's clothes had been before, her ring still in his hand.
"That was what, five years ago and now you want me to remember?" he grumbled, but he could tell he was curious now.
"You know damn well that it's only been three years. Now tell me what she said. I need to know if she ever intended to get out of this whole thing alive," he explained at least a bit.
"She called me, told me to jump on the first plane out of Mexico. Then she explained what was going on and even told me about your black op from years ago," Mike started his tale.
"I'm not so much interested in the case, as more to personal things she said," he stopped him, knowing he had heard all the important details about the case before.
"First you tell me what's going on," Franks requested irritated.
"Someone is out there killing people involved in Jenny's old ops and her death. Killer even slept in her burned down house, had one of her shawls and an old picture of her. We have been checking all of her cases, but can't find anything when it comes to a connection or a motive. This is personal," he finally said it out loud. Whatever was going on was personal. It felt good to finally say it out loud.
"She said that she would stay in this diner, because this would end there. She thanked me for staying with her and I told her that she should thank me later, after it was over. She didn't say anything," Mike gruffly started. "Then she admitted that she had been relieved at first when she had heard that Decker had died of a heart attack. Said, she always feared this op would come around and bite you in the ass," he went on. "Said it was her fault and that she made choices she wasn't proud of." He paused. "Back then I had the impression she wasn't talking about the op anymore. I told her we all have regrets and she asked "Even Gibbs?" like she didn't believe you had any," Mike finally went on. It stung, that she had thought he didn't regret that they had never tried again, never got their second chance. "I told her that you regretted letting her go and she said you didn't, that you didn't fit into her plan."
"I should have fought for her later," he admitted and Mike was silent.
"I said she made her bed and she replied 'What if I don't wanna sleep in it?'" Mike recalled their conversation.
He turned her ring in his hand and rubbed over his eyes. The tears in them stung, just as much as it hurt to hear that she had been this unhappy right under his nose and he hadn't seen it.
"I asked her if you knew and she said that it wouldn't make a difference, because you only came back for the job. Told her that we talked about her on the boat," Franks admitted and he had to smile. At least she had known that he hadn't been indifferent about her.
"Anything else, Mike?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"I told her you could still make right an she fell silent and I told her about Maggie and my Harley."
He chuckled, knowing the story. "Then I asked her if you knew that she was sick and she tried denying it. Told her I had found the pills in her purse and went through her cell and her glove compartment as well," Mike recalled.
"Anything interesting in there?" Gibbs asked, seeing his chance.
"Just the pills," Mike destroyed that possibility. "She said that you didn't know and I asked her what she was waiting for. She said 'Good question', but her eyes were saying that she knew exactly why she didn't tell you. She wasn't ok with her choice, but she knew the reason," Mike explained what he had learned the day she had died.
"And then?" Gibbs prodded.
"She had found tea and said there was no water. Told her there was a water tank out back and she wanted to go out, but I told her I'd go," Franks came closer to the end of his story.
"She wanted to make tea?" he asked disbelievingly, glad his gut was talking to him again and telling him that that didn't sound like her. "She hated tea."
"She didn't want tea. She wanted some privacy. When she thought I was out she made a phone call. She spoke in a language I didn't understand and so I went to get the water. Then the shooting started," Mike finished.
"McGee is trying to track her last phone calls right now. Thanks Mike," he said and hung up, eager to get to McGee and tell him to try extra hard with that last phone call.
"Probie, watch out. If it's really personal and depending on the motive: You might be next," Mike warned him.
"I know, Mike, I know," he nodded and hung up. Quickly he put Jenny's jewelry back in the bag and took it with him, then he hurried out.
"Anything yet?" he asked in Abby's lab, where Abby and McGee were both working, while Tony stood beside them, fiddling with his phone.
"Not yet, boss," McGee replied and Abby only shook her head.
"I can't reach Ziva, she must have switched off her phone," DiNozzo sounded alarmed.
"She's trying to find something out. I think she knows something," he replied.
"And you're just letting her keep it to herself?" Tony looked disbelievingly at him
"She will tell me, DiNozzo, when she has something," he gave him a stern look.
"I found something," McGee said then and everyone looked at him. " She wiped her phone clean, deleted her contacts, everything, just minutes before the shooting. However she made one last call that she couldn't delete because it lasted throughout the whole shooting," McGee showed them the time stamps of the phone call.
"Who did she call?" He was nervous now, knowing this would be all or nothing.
"The bureau of the Mossad in Haifa, then was connected to another phone," McGee grinned.
"Mossad?" Tony asked and Abby glared at him.
"Let McGee finish, Tony. There's more," she lectured him.
"Mossad records every incoming call for safety issues. I'm downloading the file right now," the agent grinned.
"There you all are," Ziva walked, looking tired and worried.
"Finally back, Zee-vah," Tony said.
"Sorry, Gibbs, it took me longer than I thought. I didn't want to alert Eli that we are looking for something," she apologized and he noticed that she looked uncomfortable , like she wasn't sure how to tell him something.
"And?" he requested information now, otherwise he would want the whole story, right then.
"The blood trail started in Israel. First victim was Mossad officer Amid Hadar. They found him dead in his house, killed with poison," she informed them and he wrinkled his forehead. So Mossad really was involved.
"Wasn't that the guy who picked us up at the airport?" Tony asked her, remembering his trip to Israel after he had killed Rivkin.
"My father's right hand, yes," Ziva nodded and avoided his eyes. Finally he was able to catch her look and the expression in her eyes told him she knew even more.
"Got it," MCGee's cry of victory stopped him from asking more questions.
"Play it, McGee," he demanded.
"Aiwa?" The voice of a girl echoed through the room as she answered the phone. Judging by her voice she couldn't have been older than fourteen at the time.
"Livvy, Anti uahida?" Jenny asked.
"Aiwa."
" I need you to listen to me now and don't ask questions, ok?" Jenny switched to English." I don't have much time".
"Andik Muskhila?" the girl had picked up on the shaking in Jenny's voice, her own now small and scared.
"You know that I love you more than anything, right? I want you to remember that. Always!" Jenny swore, and one could hear she was in tears by now.
"Anti btachafni," the girl replied.
"I'm scared, too. I might not get out of here alive and I'm so sorry for that . I always wanted to make it work... I screwed up so many times... but I tried... you wouldn't have been save," Jenny was openly crying now.
"Eh? Ummi!" the girl sounded confused.
"You do what I told you. No matter what, you stay save. I will take care of this and if it's the last thing I do. I will keep you save," Jenny said more to herself than to the child. "If I get out of here I will come to you. If I don't... do you remember the code?" Jenny asked.
"Jenny, Ih el..." she couldn't get farther.
"Do you remember that code?" Jenny asked again.
"Aiwa," the child replied.
"You stay where you are. If I don't come and get you, then you use that code. And don't trust anyone, but the people I trust with your life." Jenny instructed. "Don't believe everything they will tell you about me or others. Remember the Gibbs rules!"Jenny said this like she preached those words. "I love you, Livvy," she cried.
"I love you, too," the girl replied in English for the first time. Suddenly there was a bang and they all jumped, knowing it was the door of the diner being kicked in. "Jenny?" the girl asked and then there were gunshots audible, groans, sounds of pain and death and the shrill cries of the child on the other end of the line. "Jenny?" she screamed the name this time and more gunshots were audible. Jenny yelped in pain, more shots.
"Jenny! Jennyyyyy!" the girl yelled desperately and then the diner went silent. Jenny was dead. The call was ended and the recording stopped.
"Who was that?" Abby asked with a tear chocked voice. They were all still staring at the screen where the file could be seen. The question snapped them all out of their daze and he didn't need to look to know that he had goose bumps all over, the desperate cries of the child still ringing in his ears.
"Her name is Joelle Levi, she's sixteen years old now and she has been missing for about three months. Mossad believes that she killed Officer Hadar," Ziva slowly told them. She sought his eyes this time before she spoke again. "She's Jenny's daughter."
TBC
Aiwa- yes
Anti uahida?- Are you alone?
Andik Muskhila- Is there a problem?
Anti btachafni- You're scaring me
Eh? Ummi!- What? Mom!